The Future of Britain Is a Design Fiction

The London Design Museum announced this week that from the 30th of January 2013, they'll be running an exhibition all about the future of high-tech Britain. The exhibition will be called 'United Micro Kingdoms: A Design Fiction,' and will imagine a Britain divided into four independent sub-states, "each free to experiment with governance, economy and lifestyle".

Among them will be the 'Communo-Nuclearists', the 'Bio-Liberals', the 'Digital-Arians' -- who base their society on tariffs, and the 'Darwinist-Anarchists' -- who are more than happy to tamper with genetics.

Design partnership, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, have decided to imagine the future of Britain through the theme of transport. Gizmodo UK spoke with curator of the exhibition, Alex Newson, who had this to say:

"The story of the different communities is told through the emerging variety within transport technology. We want the exhibition to pose different possibilites, not just for the future but for alternative nows. If we're not constrained by what is believed to be right, how could we design things differently."

The exhibition will seek to challenge assumptions about how technology affects our societies and each of us as individuals. Designer Anthony Dunne told Giz UK:

"When you look at what's happening in the science and technology world, a lot of it is driven by practical goals. Because it's possible to do it, people do it. We're interested in fast-forwarding some of the research in different directions, some of them dark, some of them optimistic, and using the immediacy of design to bring the research alive".

Image credit: Dunne And Raby

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